ITP FAQs

1. What is the Innovation and Technology Payment (ITP) and how does it differ from the Innovation and Technology Tariff (ITT)?

Both programmes are designed to remove significant barriers to the spread and adoption of new innovations and the need for multiple price negotiations. The ITP will allow for a much wider range of innovation types and development areas with increased scope for those innovations in the community, primary care and in digital health services.

The ITP builds on the continuing commitment of NHS England to build on the recommendations of the Accelerated Access Review (AAR) by offering routes and support of new innovations and technologies that can make a real difference to patient care and outcomes.

2. How will the ITP work in practice?

The ITP will invite innovators from across the healthcare sector to apply showcasing their innovation, technology and /or product. Successful applications will be able to demonstrate use in the NHS and offer the most return and strongest case for use; these will be funded centrally by NHS England. The ITP will then work with other NHS organisations and partners to remove, if any, barriers to adoption and uptake of the successful application(s).

The ITP also has a mechanism to identify applications whose innovation(s), technology(s) and or product(s) could have an impact within the healthcare system but do not meet the centrally funded criteria. These applications could benefit from further support or signposting to other programmes.

3. How long is NHS England funding provided for successful applications?

The ITP programme has identified funding for 1 year currently 2018-2019. It is anticipated that successful applications will have embedded their product within this timeframe thereby becoming either part of a service specification or through return on investment becoming cost neutral.

4. What areas of innovation does the ITP cover?

The ITP is not restricted to any innovation, technology or product neither is it restricted to any specific area or pathway. It is open to any part of the healthcare system whereby it offers a benefit to the patient.

5. How will the ITP benefit patients?

The ITP accelerates the availability of transformational innovations to patients helping to provide best possible care and outcomes. The groups which define the ITP are focussed on patient need. This ensures the entire process is centred on the patient and improving the quality of care delivered nationally.

6. How will the ITP benefit the NHS?

Spreading best practice and innovations can also have efficiency and cost saving benefits to the NHS. Innovations which improve efficiency and productivity release savings which can then be reinvested across the system.

The ITP application process was specifically designed to offer rigour to the selection process supported by a due diligence process. This is a competitive process and any application that has been declined at the 1st stage sifting onwards will receive specific feedback.

8. Is the selection process open and transparent?

Every effort has been taken to create an open and transparent process, including learning lessons from the ITT programme. Senior level input and experts from across the NHS, NICE, OLS, DoH, MHRA were involved in the planning and application process for the ITP as well as involvement from our Medtech partners.

9. How much money will be saved by the ITP?

The main focus of the ITP is to continue our commitment to introducing innovations and technologies into the healthcare system and removing barriers to their adoption and uptake. This will not always equate to direct savings for the NHS because the focus again remains on improving the quality of care to ensure the best patient outcomes. When savings are made through the ITP process they will be the result of improved efficiencies and reinvested appropriately.

10. How will the ITP benefit UKPLC?

The ITP continues NHS England’s commitment to support cutting edge innovation by accelerating adoption and uptake. By supporting the medical technology and life sciences industries the ITP is supporting businesses and wealth creation across the UK.

11. How is the ITP being evaluated?

Processes are in place to ensure that successful applications have in place a mechanism for ensuring their innovation(s), technology(s) and or product(s) can be evaluated. This will take place during the application process where either evaluation will form part of the submission and be robustly challenged or where an application showing huge promise requires support to determine evaluation needs.

The process also ensures there is a feedback mechanism in place to capture the experience of commissioners, clinicians and NHS organisations in making use of this method of incentivising adoption.

12. What happens if products are market ready but would need production for scaling up to a national scale, would they still be considered?

If your innovation is in use in the NHS then the application would be welcome as long as it has gone through the relevant approvals process and any legislation requirements.

13. Can I submit more than one application?

There are no restrictions to the number of applications as all will be evaluated on their individual merit and their potential for the NHS.

14. Is the funding available to incentivise take up of the innovation only? Is there any funding provision to help get a product into shape to meet the need?

The available funding is for the roll out of innovations rather than development.

15. Is there a limit to the number of innovations supported?

The limit will be budgetary constraints. We could take on a number of similar innovations to the Innovation Technology Tariff. We are looking for relatively low cost innovations.

16. Is the slide deck of the WebEx’s going to be made available on the innovation portal website?

17. Is there a limit to the cost of the application, for instance a one off cost for the implementation?

The tariff will be used for example if Digital there would be a tariff for licenses. If it was medical technology then it would cover the cost of the device.

18. How quickly will the innovations be taken up and diffused?

It is still very dependent upon the CCG, Trust or Provider to take up however I would anticipate that by removing the funding barrier we would see take up happening quickly.

19. In what ways can you diffuse the innovation if it doesn’t sit with the ASHN priorities?

ITP’s aim is to reduce central funding barriers and, combined with working with the ASHNs to encourage their support of the innovation, we believe this should improve the diffusion of the innovation.

20. What are the criteria that you will be using to score the application and can you share this with us?

The scoring criteria is available in the “Call for Applications” document however we have provided an additional document showing which particular criteria relates to an individual question. This can be found on our landing page under the “Want to find out more” banner.

21. Are you using different people for marking each section?

The ITP will be following a similar assessment process to previous programmes that we have run through the system. We will have both technical and clinical expertise to assess and these assessors are trusted individuals who have worked with us previously or currently working with us.

22. How private is the information that we provide for the ITP?

All information is held securely on line and everyone that has access to it as part of the assessment process does so under confidentiality.

23. Is there a summary of the type of solutions you are looking for so that we do not waste our time in completing the application?

When you register your interest you will be asked to indicate which theme your application relates to. It is not suitable for pharmaceutical or drug based innovations.

24. I am concerned that once my innovation goes to Procurement I could be in a position whereby a larger company with deeper pockets reverse engineers what we are doing.

There could be a situation where there is more than one solution in the field and there is a risk that others could compete with a similar product

Application Word Count

Please see below the word count limits for questions requiring a written response across the 3 application steps.

ITP - Registration

Please provide a brief summary of your innovation 200

ITP application - qualifying questions

Please indicate your estimate of the total adoption costs of your innovation and how you have arrived at this figure 300ITP - Full application

1b: Please detail your innovation's strategic fit with current NHS strategy and objectives 3002: Please detail the unmet need or problem your innovation aims to address 3003a: Please describe the health outcomes your innovation has delivered for patients, with details of the supporting evidence from pilots or trials conducted and any awards received 6004a: Please describe the value for money your innovation delivers for the tax payer including details of return on investment, overall savings, and timeframes for savings to be released? 6005. Please detail your major competitors and how your innovation compares with the current competition? 3006. How could the success of your innovation in the Innovation and Technology Payment scheme be measured? (e.g extent of diffusion, improvement of patient outcomes, cost savings) 300

Section 2: Adoption details

7: Please detail the progress made to date in the adoption of your innovation. Please include, for example, and as appropriate, details of who you have engaged, current adoption sites, details of who is buying or commissioning your innovation, with a particular focus on NHS use. 6008: Please state your business plan for the next 5 years for your innovation with some projections for the intended users, adoption sites and geographical coverage, etc. 3009: Please describe any specific barriers and challenges to your innovation apart from NHS funding and support. If you have had feedback from the NHS about why they are not using your innovation, please describe that here. 300